Hmmm...good topic!!! Some off the top of my (tired) head-.ED WOOD.ZODIAC.RAGING BULL.SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Alan Ormsby's DERANGED (you know-the thinly veiled Ed Gein bio-pic?).the ELEPHANT MAN.BONNIE and CLYDE.BEN-HUR.SPARTACUS. TORA! TORA! TORA!.SID and NANCY. DILLENGER (with Warren Oates).BLOODY MAMA (with Shelly Winters, Robert DeNiro...lots more! 'Bout the Ma Barker clan....!)...more later...Ima tired...I went and got a income tax advance of $440 dollars from H+R Block today...as soon as I got into the van in the parking lot outside of H+R,the altenator seized...busted the drive belt. It cost $60 to get it towed to Muffler Man and $352 to get the dam thing running in time to go pick up Angel at work. Whatta day....now thats a dam hystercal drama! Enuff to drive a man to drink...ughh...but-I'm still as dry as a popcorn fart.

Karma to EMMR for her first post!!! I hadn't mentioned 2004's THE ALAMO, but it is a really great film. Billy Bob Thornton was quite good as David Crockett, and Dennis Quaid was excellent as Sam Houston. One of my arrowhead hunting pals is a Texas Revolution Reenactor, and he is in several scenes in the movie. Overall, it is the most historically accurate of all the Alamo movies. I especially love the way they handled Crockett's death scene . . . . much more believable than the way John Wayne did it.

Karma to EMMR for her first post!!! I hadn't mentioned 2004's THE ALAMO, but it is a really great film. Billy Bob Thornton was quite good as David Crockett, and Dennis Quaid was excellent as Sam Houston. One of my arrowhead hunting pals is a Texas Revolution Reenactor, and he is in several scenes in the movie. Overall, it is the most historically accurate of all the Alamo movies. I especially love the way they handled Crockett's death scene . . . . much more believable than the way John Wayne did it.

This is one film that I can say taught me something, I had always believed that the defenders of the Alamo were all from America, I was quite surprised to learn that 35 or so were from Mexico and were lead by Juan Sequin.The town of Sequin, Texas is named after him.

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Science claims that hydrogen, because there is so much of it, is the building block of the universe, I dispute this, there is plenty more stupidity, and that is the building block of the universe. Frank Zappa

They were Tejanos - native Texans of Hispanic descent who fought for independence. Of course, Texas was part of Mexico, so they were Mexicans, too, I suppose. At San Jacinto Houston wanted them to guard the baggage train - he was afraid that once the killing started, his men would not distinguish one Hispanic from another. Seguin refused, so his men all stuck playing cards in their hats to identify themselves. They killed as many Mexicans as the Anglo-Texans did that day!

Crockett's demise was better in the 2004 movie than in the John Wayne one (or Fess Parker's musket swinging finish in Disney's 1950's depiction) but in portraying that death as shown the producers were also more or less giving a nod toward the veracity of the De la Peña Diary with its version of the event, and I think that's stretching things a little considering the unproven nature of that document. Still, it was a hard hitting scene. "I'm a screamer..." Good stuff!

Crockett's demise was better in the 2004 movie than in the John Wayne one (or Fess Parker's musket swinging finish in Disney's 1950's depiction) but in portraying that death as shown the producers were also more or less giving a nod toward the veracity of the De la Peña Diary with its version of the event, and I think that's stretching things a little considering the unproven nature of that document. Still, it was a hard hitting scene. "I'm a screamer..." Good stuff!

I think the de la Pena diary may be the real thing. There are five other Mexican sources that mention prisoners being executed after the battle, and two of them name Crockett, I believe. Of course, they could have copied de la Pena, I guess. There is an excellent work called "Eyewitness to the Alamo" that actually includes every single purported eyewitness account of the battle, and the date they surfaced. Some of the later ones, like Madame Candaleria's accounts, are obviously fanciful.

10 Commandments with Charlton Heston. I saw it as a child the first time and just loved it. Even now, it draws me in.

Amadeus with Tom Hulce. He did a brilliant job. And I absolutely hated Cagliari and could cheerfully have murdered him myself.

Quills with Geoffrey Rush. That was okay from what little I saw.

Joan of Arc with Leelee Sobieski. (sp?)

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Flower, gleam and glowLet your power shineMake the clock reverseBring back what once was mineHeal what has been hurtChange the fates' designSave what has been lostBring back what once was mineWhat once was mine.......

Zhivago is wonderful -- I've watched this one numerous times over the years and marvel at it all over again from time to time -- The house covered entirely in beeswax to simulate ice -- The fields painted white because it was 90 degrees in Spain when they shot it -- Klaus Kinski in one of the best cameo roles of his or any actor's career -- Lean certainly doesn't inspire the passion that other directors seem to get -- the Welles' & Pasolinis & Kurosawas, etc. -- in part because he had a reputation as being a bit of a cold fish, but looking at his body of work, he came up with some astonishing pictures: Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Zhivago, and his under-appreciated Charles Dickens masterpieces, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. Indeed, in any discussion of movies about times in History, I would put Lawrence, Kwai, and Zhivago as my top 3 in that order. Somewhere further down has to be David Wark Griffith's Birth of a Nation, racism & all. As others have noted, the battle scenes play as if Matthew Brady had access to the Lumiere Brothers' cameras 15 years early. The Best Years of Our Lives still plays as if it happened just the other day -- a stunning little picture that swept the Oscars the year it was released & deservedly so.peter johnson/denny crane

They were Tejanos - native Texans of Hispanic descent who fought for independence. Of course, Texas was part of Mexico, so they were Mexicans, too, I suppose. At San Jacinto Houston wanted them to guard the baggage train - he was afraid that once the killing started, his men would not distinguish one Hispanic from another. Seguin refused, so his men all stuck playing cards in their hats to identify themselves. They killed as many Mexicans as the Anglo-Texans did that day!

Thank you, I knew there was a term for Sequin and his men, just couldn't remember it. I recall reading, possibly in "A Time to Stand" by Walter Lord but I could be mistaken, that most of the Americans in Texas at that time were in fact Mexican citizens, the Mexican government was giving land grants to people who settled in Texas and one requirement was that foreigners become Mexican citizens. When Santa Ana became the ruler of Mexico they felt he was taking away the rights and freedoms granted to them by the government and decided to fight for what they felt was theirs. If Santa Ana had just abided by the agreements made with the settlers there would have been no war and no independent Republic of Texas and possibly the map of North America would be very different.

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Science claims that hydrogen, because there is so much of it, is the building block of the universe, I dispute this, there is plenty more stupidity, and that is the building block of the universe. Frank Zappa

. . . and I'm an "I, Claudius" fan too, though Graves by his own admission was fictionalizing as he went on that one.

Same here. My mother introduced me to this gem and I remember, even as a kid in the 70s, being captivated by it. They had a rebroadcast one summer with Anne Bancroft introducing the episodes and I recall her grave warnings to the television audience that they'd be witness to savage acts of violence and wanton displays of boobies.

"If Santa Ana had just abided by the agreements made with the settlers there would have been no war and no independent Republic of Texas and possibly the map of North America would be very different."

Possibly, but I doubt it. Mexico was incapable of sustaining a working government, and Anglo-Americans were unwilling to live under a people who were seemingly incapable of governing themselves. Also, Mexico had essentially allowed Texas to govern itself for a decade while they underwent several consecutive revolutions . . . but when they saw the Anglo population of Texas had swelled to over 20,000, they decided to crack down on all further immigration from the U.S. (sound familiar?). The Americans had come to Texas assuming they would enjoy the same rights and privileges they had as U.S. citizens under the liberal Mexican constitution of 1824. If Santa Anna had not suspended that document, one of the dictators who followed him would have. Mexico simply did not have the tutelage in self-government that the Americans had enjoyed under the British for 250 years, and even today they still haven't got their government house in order.

P.S. My great-great grandfather Jim Youngblood and his family came to Texas in 1832 or so. He fought in the Texas Revolution as a 16 year old, helping capture San Antonio from General Cos. Then he served in the Mexican-American War at age 28, and later on in the Civil War in his early 40's - and never got shot!! Married a girl 14 years younger than himself, had six kids with her, and outlived her by two decades, dying at age 91 in 1911 - one of the last surviving veterans of the Texas Revolution.

Since my last post here I've been thinking about it and I have to agree with you, even without the revolt in Texas the westward expansion of the United States and the idea of manifest destiny would have lead to North America being pretty much what t is today. I just sometimes like to daydream about "what if ?" type of situations.

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Science claims that hydrogen, because there is so much of it, is the building block of the universe, I dispute this, there is plenty more stupidity, and that is the building block of the universe. Frank Zappa